


nobody can save you now

by jukeboxhound



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angst, Drama, M/M, Seven Deadly Sins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:19:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3984688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxhound/pseuds/jukeboxhound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Theirs had been a slow, inexorable fall.</i>
</p><p>(Prompt - Sephiroth, Cloud, and your pick of the 7 deadly sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, or gluttony.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	nobody can save you now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [razziecat](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=razziecat).



> Warnings: the inherent power imbalance of superior/subordinate; vaguely implied noncon during the time of the original game.

…

 

_**Envy** _

Line upon line of new recruits filled the largest of ShinRa’s training grounds, some of them glowing with confidence, some green with nausea, and some, like Cloud, filled with a mess of anxiety and excitement. SOLDIERs stood in perfect formation along a raised platform set up on one end of the grounds, a row of attentive sentinels behind the smiling, talking president. Just a few steps back and to the left of the president was General Sephiroth, tall and composed, sleek and so, so far above anything Cloud could hope to equal.

But even so, when Cloud looked at the SOLDIER standing beside Sephiroth, what he felt was the bone-deep wish that _he_ was the one whose elbow nearly brushed Sephiroth’s with the kind of carelessness that comes wrapped in complete trust.

 

_**Gluttony** _

“What is this?”

Cloud froze with a cookie halfway to his mouth. Zack noisily swallowed one down and grinned brightly at Sephiroth with streaks of chocolate chip caught between his teeth. “Testing for poison. Might have to eat a few more just to be sure. Scientific method and all.”

Sephiroth’s gaze slid from Zack to Cloud, who managed a soft, “Um.”

Sephiroth finally entered Zack’s quarters and let the door close behind him before nudging an opened cardboard box and a small pile of packing peanuts with the toe of a boot. “Care package?”

“Yessir,” said Cloud, who suddenly scrambled to his feet and tried to throw a salute with a cookie still in each hand. Zack snickered.

“At ease, Private.”

“Yessir. Thank you, sir.” Cloud’s lost some of his tension, but none of his wariness, and Sephiroth told himself it was only to be expected, even from someone who could earn Zack’s respect. “Um, would you…like some, sir?”

“…What?”

“Some cookies, sir. My mum, she’s a great baker and she sent me _loads_. I mean, they keep for a long time and still taste good, and the post isn’t always very reliable between here and Nibelheim, and would you, uh, would you like one? Sir?”

Zack was coughing into his arm to cover up the laughter, which was enough to make Cloud’s ears turn red but not enough to make him drop his gaze. After a few heartbeats, Sephiroth said, “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

It was a plain chocolate chip cookie, utterly unremarkable, reheated on a hot plate in Zack’s kitchen. Instead of the stiff tastelessness of the bulk cookie tins often left in staff rooms during holidays, however, it was sugary and buttery, soft on the inside, with just the right amount of crispiness on its edges and enough dark chocolate to make the dough that much richer without drowning out every other flavor. He wondered if his own mother would’ve made cookies like this. The only downside was how closely Cloud was pretending not to watch him, but when Sephiroth gave him a sincere, “This is good,” Cloud’s face, normally so solemn, broke open on a wide smile. He so obviously pleased by something so _small_ that Sephiroth couldn’t help returning a little half-smile of his own and asking, “May I have seconds?”

 

_**Pride** _

When Sephiroth passed Genesis in the hall on his way to one of the training gyms, and Genesis smirked and said, “You certainly have unexpected taste,” he quickened his pace and threw open the gym doors.

It was silent and deserted save for Cloud, who stood in the middle of the mats with his head bowed and a blunted practice sword in his white-knuckled hand. There should’ve been more people here at this time of day, suggesting that Genesis had scared them all away, but there was no blood on the mats – or Cloud, for that matter – or dismembered body parts. Sephiroth slowly walked forward until he was a good few paces away from Cloud.

"Cloud?”

Cloud’s hand tightened until it seemed like the tendons would snap. The silence stretched, and Sephiroth waited for several long moments until Cloud murmured, “Was there something you wanted?”

“I passed Genesis,” Sephiroth said calculatingly, and got rewarded with a slight tremor that made the sword twitch sharply. _Damn it, Genesis_. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Cloud gritted out between his teeth.

Sephiroth tilted his head in acknowledgment and headed towards the far side of the mat, close enough to talk but far enough away to give Cloud plenty of space, then slipped off his coat and folded it into a neat pile to the side. He was hardly into his beginning stretches when Cloud growled, “He said I’m a passing whimsy. A novelty.”

Sephiroth straightened back up and turned around. Cloud was staring at the sword in his hands with his brows pulled together in a frown. “He said I’m a _toy_.”

“You’re not,” Sephiroth broke in immediately, and Cloud flicked him a look from under his bangs with a sharp, “I _know_ I’m not, but he thinks he can waltz in and talk shit because I’m, what, a Regular? A teenager? _Short?”_

It took a surprising amount of self-control for Sephiroth to bite back a laugh and sound neutral. “Genesis has always been that way. His greatest weapon is his words.”

"So that makes it _okay?”_ Cloud demanded, stalking forward, and Sephiroth had never seen him like this, all the gentleness and equanimity swallowed up by unselfconscious anger, and who’d have thought that _this_ would be hiding in someone so unassuming? Someone who maybe didn’t allow their squadmates to walk all over him but never actually retaliated, either?

Sephiroth looked straight into narrowed, bright blue eyes and thought, in a voice uncomfortably like Zack’s, _Oh, shit_.

 

_**Lust** _

There were sixteen reasons why he shouldn’t be doing this and they all added up to _barely of age_ with an additional variable of _subordinate_ , but it was hard to remember them when said barely-of-age subordinate was riding his cock with thighs spread wide and hips rolling gracefully under his hands. Those bright blue eyes stared into his own with unexpected intensity, and when Sephiroth thrust up particularly hard, caused Cloud to groan and dig his teeth into Sephiroth’s shoulder, Sephiroth could swear that each bite was carving _love_ into his flesh.

 

_**Greed** _

He had bled for these people and shed blood in return. They’d wanted a mascot, so he gave them a _god_ , and the old gods, the ancient gods, deserved nothing less than everything.

He brought them fire, and he brought them fear. He brought them the promise of a new world, and if he wanted a novelty in return, a toy, who were they to deny him a moment of whimsy? It was amusing how this little puppet thought he could say _no_. It wasn’t like he’d ever said ‘no’ before anyway; why should he be allowed to start now?

 

_**Wrath** _

The face that had once learned to smile at him, a small crack in an otherwise impenetrable wall, now sneered with contempt. Hands that had once touched his body so carefully, as though afraid of breaking something, now tried to wrap around his throat. The voice that had once whispered, _I do not know love, but if I did, I imagine it would be this_ , now spoke of cruelty and control. The sword that had once guided his own in practice, teaching him how to make the blade an extension of himself, now tried to pierce his heart. (Again.)

"You took _everything_ from me,” Cloud told him.

"Because everything is _mine_ ,” Sephiroth replied.

Cloud snarled, saw red (which was better than green), and pierced Sephiroth’s heart with his sword. It wasn’t until he saw the blood dripping from Ultima in blurred streaks that he realized his face was wet with tears.

 

_**Sloth** _

Cloud lay on his back and looked up at a grey sky through the enormous hole in the church roof. The scent of flowers tickled his nose at odd moments between the starbursts of pain that shivered through his arm, his body, and the crate of materia beside his sad excuse for a sleeping pallet sang silently to the mako and geostigma in his veins.

Two packages sat on the bike near the church doors, ready to be delivered. He’d told Tifa he would actually be at the bar tonight for dinner. Reeve was waiting for a report on the monsters plaguing the surrounding grasslands.

Cloud lay on his back and looked up at a grey sky through the enormous hole in the church roof until the shadows lengthened and darkened, and didn’t think about anything at all.

(Liar.)

 


End file.
